Floodlights and Goalposts

Is this nothing?

November 19th, 2024

LEONTES                                                                         Is whispering nothing?

Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh? - a note infallible
Of breaking honesty! - horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?
Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes
Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked? Is this nothing?
Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing,
The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,
My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.

Getting those Ecclesiastes vibes reading Leontes’ accusations of Hermione and Polixenes.

We see what we want to.

William Shakespeare. The Winter’s Tale. Edited by Frances E. Dolan. Series edited by Stephen Orgel. New York: Penguin Classics, 2017. pg 16

Going hence

November 17th, 2024

Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither…

– William Shakespeare

As read from John Hendrix’s The Mythmakers.

Hendrix, John. The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien (A Graphic Novel). United States, Abrams Fanfare, 2024. pg 154

Not that Tesla

November 16th, 2024

His name was Nikola Tesla.
A gifted inventor, a creature of habit.
A lover of animals, a friend to humankind.
A child of the storm, a child of the light.
A human flash of lightning, far ahead of his time.

  - Azadeh Westergaard

Picture books are underrated. Children’s books are underrated.

Westergaard, Azadeh. A Life Electric: The Story of Nikola Tesla. United Kingdom, Penguin Young Readers Group, 2021.

Hot brain

November 11th, 2024

Aside, aside! Here is more matter for a hot brain. Every lane’s end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man work.

AUTOLYCUS

First Shakespeare quote. Did not expect it to come from Autolycus.

He may be one of Shakespeare’s most overlooked characters. He’s not a name that stood out on the roster of characters in The Winter’s Tale, but drives so much of the story in later acts of the play.

William Shakespeare. The Winter’s Tale. Edited by Frances E. Dolan. Series edited by Stephen Orgel. New York: Penguin Classics, 2017. pg 90
Overwhelmed with the urge to paint

November 7th, 2024

One day, the writer was overwhelmed by the urge to paint again. He recognized in himself the desire that had been gagged and throttled, but never killed; he had stumbled upon the painter whom he had left for dead. He walked into a stationary shop, bought two bags of paints and pencils, and began to fill two dozen notebooks. His hand seemed to move of its own accord. One day it drew, the next day it wrote, “like someone autographing a page without even realizing they’re doing it.”

– Orhan Pamuk

Collapse to the urge. Pull out the graphite. Pull out the pens. Pull out the paints.

Go!

from:

https://www.vqronline.org/fall-2024/art-portfolios/memories-distant-mountains

h/t – https://x.com/nabeelqu
Illness and hope

November 3rd, 2024

Hope revives within me. I shall recover, and my dream of glory be fulfilled. Nelson will yet be an admiral.

-Horatio Nelson

Targeted ambition.

From:

Sugden, John. Nelson: A Dream of Glory, 1758-1797. United States, Henry Holt and Company, 2004.
Four Panel Friday: Myth & Joy

November 1st, 2024

Haven’t posted a Four Panel Fridays in ages. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien’s friendship revived it, for this week anyway…

Hendrix, John. The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien (A Graphic Novel). United States, Abrams Fanfare, 2024.
Truly yourself

October 31st, 2024

For man is never truly himself except when he is actively creating something

– Dorthy L. Sayers

Go! Create!

As read from John Hendrix’s The Mythmakers. The best type of book – part prose biography, part comic, part picture book.

Doubles as a commonplace book, chock full of fantastic quotes.

Picture books are underrated.

Hendrix, John. The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien (A Graphic Novel). United States, Abrams Fanfare, 2024. pg 101
Televisonless eccentrics

October 30th, 2024

I live on the Maine coast, to the east of Penobscot Bay. Formerly, this coast was not in the path of hurricanes, or if it was we didn’t seem to know it, but times change and we must change with them. My house is equipped with three small, old-fashioned radios, two of them battery sets, one a tiny plug-in bedside model on which my wife sometimes manages to get the Giants after I have turned in. We do not have television, and because of this curious omission we are looked upon as eccentrics, possibly radicals.

– E.B. White

That from the essay “The Eye of Edna”. A reflection on an approaching storm and the impact of communication technology.

White, E. B.. Essays of E. B. White. United States, HarperCollins, 2014. pg 30
Degenerate Epigrams

October 28th, 2024

Of course there are, occasionally, clever antitheses, antitheses that draw fine distinctions or tell you something that you did not know already. Oscar Wilde was the master of these, with lines like, ‘The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves’. But we can’t all be Oscar Wilde, and it would be interminably dull if we were. The world would degenerate into one permanent epigram.

– Mark Forsyth

Mark Forsyth’s The Elements of Eloquence is eloquent and full of surprise. The world degenerating into one permanent epigram isn’t a phrase I’d expect to see in a “writing” book.

Forsyth, Mark. The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase. United Kingdom, Icon Books, Limited, 2014. pg. 19